by Ramy Vance
“Is this going anywhere?”
“Shut up and listen. The Creeping Blackness had been at war with his mother for nearly a thousand years by the time that I was born. He had tried all of his tricks to destroy her, but nothing worked. Finally, he went to an oracle to search for answers. The oracle rested in the middle of the oldest black hole, and the Creeping Blackness entered the black hole and was not destroyed. Once he found his way through the crushing blackness of space, he stood before the oracle. He asked how would he be able to destroy his mother so that he could finally launch all reality into a night so dark that one would question if it were hell itself. The oracle looked at him for some time, thinking. Finally, the oracle told the Creeping Blackness that he had no mother, that he had birthed himself in the void of time and space. He was in his own mother. Then the black hole collapsed on itself, and the oracle was no more. That was how the Creeping Blackness destroyed his mother.”
Suzuki stood and grabbed the robe hanging on the bedpost. He walked over to where Fred sat looking out the window. He pulled up a seat next to the imp. “Fred, I never understand any of these weird-ass stories. What the fuck are you trying to tell me?”
“The Creeping Blackness was his own worst enemy, a lesson you should pay heed to while you’re beating yourself up.”
Suzuki narrowed his eyes, not entirely sure about the point Fred was trying to make. Still, he was trying. “Huh? I guess that’s helpful. For a demon.” Suzuki shrugged.
“I am an imp. Demons lack my class and wit.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
Fred ruffled his scales and sat up on his hind legs so that he looked like a small dragon. He yawned loudly, his teeth shining brightly. “ My point is that right now, you have become an enemy to yourself, and you are the only one standing in the way of your own goals.” Then there was another pop, a cloud of smoke, the unforgettable smell of sulfur, and the imp was gone. Suzuki could feel Fred adjusting himself somewhere in the pocket dimension Suzuki’s body held. Then there was nothing.
Suzuki stood up to pace again, walking the room’s short length one side to the other. He was scrolling through his HUD at the same time, not looking for anything specific. It was just giving him something to do while he thought.
He let his mind wander as his feet hit the ground. The repetition was helpful for his thoughts, not that they were going anywhere.
A knock at the door broke Suzuki’s concentration. He crossed the room and opened the door where he was greeted by two small people with yellow hair. The skin of one was blue, and the other was orange. They were roughly the size of a child or dwarf. Their cheeks were a rosy red, and their faces were puffed up as if they were suffering from an allergic reaction.
Suzuki knelt down to be eye-level with the two candy-colored individuals. “Can I help you two?”
The orange one pushed Suzuki out of the way and stormed into the room. “It’s me, dude,” Stew shouted. “We got Humpa Lumphad-ed.”
Suzuki blinked his eyes. “Don’t you mean Oompa Loompa-ed?”
The tiny colorful creature that was Stew shook his head. “Humpa Lumphad-ed. Apparently Oompa Loompa is copyrighted.”
“Just like Middle3arth.”
“Bingo.”
Sandy scuttled into the room after Stew. She went straight for the mirror hanging on the wall across from Suzuki’s bed. She held her hands out and then looked down at her feet. She spun around and looked at her ass. “Not bad. Got an Humpa Lumphad badunkadunk.”
Suzuki took the chair from his desk, flipped it around, and sat on it, leaning over its back to get a better look at Stew. The Humpa Lumphad bore a fair resemblance to Stew. He was unnaturally muscular, like a child forced to lift weights competitively. The acne helped with the image as well.
Sandy hobbled over to Stew and took a seat next to him on the bed. “On a scale of one to ten, how adorable are we?”
“Honestly, you both look terrifying. What the hell happened to you?” Suzuki asked.
“We got sent on another ‘not quest.’ Some jackass sent us to an Humpa Lumphad brothel, which was fucking awesome by the way.” Sandy’s voice trailed off as she thought back to the brothel.
Stew jumped up onto the bed. He was trembling with excitement. “Dude!” He wrung his hands and raised them to the sky. “Yeah, I’ll say that that brothel was awesome! I have never seen anything like it in my entire life.”
“Do you go to brothels often?”
“No, but this was out of control. I guess Humpa Lumphads don’t fuck like we do. Or like anyone does. They had all these weird candy things hanging from the walls and the ceiling. And whatever the fuck Humpa Lumphads think is sexy is not like anything I’ve ever seen. All the brothel workers were walking around, slathering themselves with jam and butter. So me and Sandy got a butter massage. It was fucking rad.”
“So how’d you end up all small and weird-colored?”
Sandy sighed. “Uh, we didn’t bring enough candy to pay for the massage, so we got cursed.”
Stew sat down and picked at his skin. He peeled off a layer of dried butter and flicked it onto the floor. “It was pretty embarrassing,” Stew admitted.
Sandy adjusted her overalls as she tried to get comfortable. Then she worked on her gloves. “I can’t stop fidgeting. I want my old body back. As awesome as that brothel was, I don’t want to be an Humpa Lumphad any longer than I have to be. We need to find someone who can reverse this. Fast.”
“How about Diana? You and she are pretty tight, right?” Suzuki asked.
“We might as well check. I really, really want to get some candy—and I fucking hate candy. This is the worst.”
“Awesome brothel, though,” Stew interjected.
“Yeah, awesome brothel. Anywhoooo, let’s go find Diana. You coming?” Sandy said as she rolled off the bed onto the floor.
Suzuki shrugged before nodding. Why not? It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.
Stew jumped down after her and then rolled her across the floor like an oblong ball. Suzuki stepped to the side to allow Stew and Sandy to make their way out of the room.
“Uh,” Suzuki started. “You guys—”
Sandy managed to twist her head around for a second before Stew rolled her over to the other side and out the door. “Yes, we know,” she shouted. “It feels natural, so we’re just gonna go with it!”
Suzuki and the two Humpa Lumphad Mundanes made their way downstairs in this fashion. The stairs didn’t seem to be a problem, and Sandy bounced down them as Stew chased after her like an old-time child playing with a hoop and stick. They were both chuckling under their breath, an odd sound like children laughing underwater. The sound was definitely unnatural, and very eerie. Suzuki tried to stay out of their way as Stew herded Sandy to the bar, where they found Wendy wiping down tables. She was grungy from a full day of work, her hair tied back in a ponytail, and she didn’t seem happy to see the Mundanes when she looked up from her work.
That changed when she got a good look at their current orange and blue predicament.
Suzuki grabbed one of the rags on the table that Wendy was cleaning with. “You seen Diana anywhere around here?”
Wendy snatched the rag from Suzuki. She pointed to her own rag and her wiping pattern. “Circular. Don’t just move the dirt around. And no, I haven’t seen her. I heard she was heading to the Mage’s Library. The rest of her crew is out on a quest.”
“Why didn’t she go with them?”
Wendy jerked her thumb at Stew and Sandy, who were sitting at the bar now, fighting over a bowl of candy. “What the fuck happened to them?”
“Humpa Lumphad brothel.”
“That place is still open? Shit, I can see why you’re looking for Diana. You know where the library is?”
Suzuki nodded. “Yeah, I got an idea.”
“If you run into anyone from the Last Ale, you keep your mouth shut, all right? I got a week to prep for whatever shit they’re gonna try and pull.”
Suzuki motioned that he was zipping his lips before locking them and throwing away the key. “Mum’s the word, mum.”
“Don’t call me ‘Mum.’ It’s weird.”
“Sorry.”
The Mundanes arrived at the Mages’ Library near sunset. The library was a large ornate building on the other side of the MERC encampment. It was reminiscent of old Greek buildings, white columns next to each other and a massive gold dome on the top. Even with the sun preparing to descend, there were more than a handful of mages walking in and out of the building. None of them seemed to have time to pay attention to the warrior-mage and two Humpa Lumphads making their way up the white stairs of the library.
Stew and Sandy were bickering as they ascended the flight of stairs, but Suzuki couldn’t understand them. It sounded like they were speaking another language, and he hoped that this transformation wasn’t one of those weird, anime transformations where they would only become more Humpa Lumphad-ish the longer it went on. Trying to finish a quest with them ripping each other apart to find candy sounded like a nightmare.
They were cute in a very unsettling way.
A mage clerk sat at the entrance desk. He looked up from his book as the Mundanes stepped into the building. “Library cards, please,” the clerk said.
Suzuki went up to the desk and tried to look casual. It was difficult. Stew and Sandy were holding hands and spinning around in a circle, chanting some nursery rhyme that Suzuki had never heard before. Suzuki turned away from the nonsense that was happening behind him, cleared his throat, and tried to speak with as professional a tone as he could muster. “We’re not here to check out books. We’re—”
“Why are you at a library if you aren’t checking out books?”
“We, uh, we’re looking for someone,” Suzuki said.
“Is this someone in a book?”
“No. Diana. Of the Four Horsemen?”
“Uh-huh.” The mage eyed Suzuki like he didn’t believe the warrior-mage could possibly know one of the Horsemen. “You still need a library card to enter the library. There are a lot of important books here. We can’t just have anyone walking in and out of the library.”
“So you can walk in and out if you have a card?”
“Yep.”
“What do I need for a card?” Suzuki asked.
“I just need your HUD. I’ll set you up with an account.”
“That easy?” Suzuki was wondering why the mage hadn't just volunteered that information right off the bat.
The mage nodded. “That easy.”
“And this protects people from walking in and out of here, how?”
The clerk put down his book and closed it very slowly as his eyes bored into Suzuki’s. “Do you want the card or not?”
Suzuki removed his HUD and handed it to the clerk. The clerk snatched it and plugged it into the computer screen on his desk, before standing up and riffling through the books behind him. He pulled out a large blue book that had gold lettering on the front and thumbed through it for a few minutes before licking his fingers and dog-earing a page. Then he took a quill from a pile on his desk, turned the book to face Suzuki, and pointed to the empty page. “Sign here, please.”
“What am I signing?” Suzuki asked.
“Just a policy agreement.”
“What’s the policy?” Suzuki was vaguely reminded of Apple’s Terms and Conditions, documents that no one read. But on Earth, the worst that would happen was they’d revoke your privileges. Here, Suzuki wasn’t sure. For all he knew, he was signing over his soul or agreeing to spend eternity as a bookworm or some shit like that.
“You can check out up to fifty books at a time for two years. Fees are charged if you’re late, a copper piece per book per day. If your late fees exceed 100 copper pieces, your privileges will be revoked, and you’ll be fed to the dragons in the dungeon. If you are fed to the dragons, you reserve the right to a duel with one of the dragon keepers to absolve yourself of your fees. Please be careful with our books because many of them are priceless. Thank you.”
So it was worse than selling your soul. “Wait, fed to dragons?”
“It’s mostly a formality. We haven’t fed anyone to a dragon in, I don’t know, a couple years or so. Just make sure to bring your books back on time or get an extension. Thank you.”
The clerk handed Suzuki his HUD and went back to reading. Once Suzuki got himself situated, he walked over to Stew and Sandy. They were fighting again. This time it was getting a little vicious.
Now Sandy was hanging onto Stew’s arms by her teeth. Stew was laughing and trying to swing her around his head. It looked like a fight, but then again, Suzuki wasn’t sure. Both of them were already weird, and that was back when they were human.
Suzuki grabbed them both and pulled them off of each other. Stew went limp like a spoiled child, and Suzuki dragged both of his Humpa Lumphads through the magical detectors that separated the library lobby from the main library. Once they were past the detectors, the library opened up.
Suzuki stood in a massive hall with rows and rows of dark wooden bookcases stretching as far as he could see. The library was filled with lavish couches and chairs. None of the bookcases had any sign of cataloging, and each looked exactly like the other. Mages, mostly elfish, walked back and forth carrying piles of books, sometimes stacked so high that Suzuki couldn’t see who was holding them. As Suzuki walked the length of the library, he noticed there were hundreds of tables scattered through the library with mages sitting at them, thumbing through books.
At one of the tables, a group of mages sat behind an alchemy set, their faces buried in separate books. One of the mages held a wand and was levitating a host of vials above the alchemy set. One of the vials tipped over and dripped a small amount of golden liquid into a boiling cauldron. The cauldron suddenly exploded, searing the eyebrows of the mage who was tending to it.
The rest of the mages laughed and kept on with their experiments or reading. The rest of the library was pretty much the same way. It looked as if every mage was immersed completely in his own research.
Suzuki felt a tug on his hand. Sandy was pulling him in the direction of one of the tables. Then she let go of his hand and bolted. Suzuki gasped after her, “Wait, Sandy! Wait!”
Sandy was off, running as fast as her stubby orange legs would carry her. Suzuki groaned loudly. This was more than he had expected. Sandy and Stew were regressing. Whatever the mental age of an Humpa Lumphad was, it was not nearly close enough to an adult for Suzuki to deal with.
Suzuki felt a sharp pain in his foot, and he yelped loudly. Stew had stomped on him and was running away to chase after Sandy. Suzuki took off after them, running through the aisles while the mages looked up from their work and glared at them. Suzuki wondered where the librarians were, but then, with patrons like this, they probably didn’t need librarians.
Stew and Sandy were completely out of Suzuki’s sight. “Shit,” he muttered to himself as he wandered through the rows of books, noting that they stretched to the ceiling.
He looked up at the painted scene on the dome. Elfish, human, dwarf, and halfling mages were standing in a circle with a book in the middle. In the background, there was a black storm, lightning flashing, and a face that could barely be made out in the clouds. Hey, Fred, what’s that painting of?
The races uniting their magic against the Dark One.
You said that the Dark One showed up without magic, right? Where did he come from?
That is a question we have all been asking ourselves for quite some time. No one knows. Not even the eldritch creatures such as myself. He seems as ancient as some of the Elder Ones, but those who agree to speak cannot recall when he came into existence. However, it was his coming into our realms that caused the different races to unite their magical knowledge. Before that, magic was studied in different schools, each race using magic as they had been taught for thousands of years. That has changed since the Dark One came. Now races share their knowledge amongst
each other, strengthening their understanding of magic.
So he brought people together?
If that is how you’d like to think of the war and destruction he has created.
Suzuki stepped out of the rows of bookcases into another open lobby. He could see Stew’s and Sandy’s technicolor skin from across the room. They were standing next to a table, gesticulating wildly to whoever was sitting there. Suzuki jogged to catch up with them.
Diana was sitting at the table, listening to the odd run-on language of the Humpa Lumphads as Stew and Sandy tried to explain themselves. When Suzuki got to the table, Diana looked up and smiled warmly at him. “I’m assuming you can tell me something about what is going on here.”
Suzuki nodded and moved to the side so Diana could see him better. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry to interrupt…uh…whatever you’re doing. But something happened to Stew and Sandy. They went to an Humpa Lumphad brothel and came back like this. They were okay, or more okay earlier. But now they’re not talking normally anymore and, I don’t know, they’re just acting really weird.”
Diana leaned forward, grabbed Stew’s face, and licked her finger before whipping it across Stew’s forehead. That done, she stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked. “Hmmm. He does taste a lot like candy.”
“Yeah, they seem to really be about candy right now.”
Diana nodded, her lips crooked in a devilish way. “One of them must have fucked an Humpa Lumphad, or whatever it is that Humpa Lumphads consider to be fucking. Humans are particularly susceptible to this. We have weaker DNA strains than the rest of the other races; that’s why transformations hit us a lot harder than anyone else. It helps when we’re trying to transform, though. Ultimately, however, this is just a little virus. We can clear it up in a minute. Come on. Wrangle your friends.”
Diana stood and wandered off to one of the aisles of books, leaving Suzuki to grab Sandy’s and Stew’s hands and follow her. As Diana walked, she would stop at different bookcases, flip through the book she was holding, and start back up again. They walked through the library in this way for some time until Diana took a turn, walked past some bookcases, and came to a stairwell that led downstairs. She took a lantern hanging from the right of the stairwell and descended.